PCMCIA Card Freezing my wifes LT...What gives?

budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
edited February 2008 in Hardware
Ok...all...wife hollars at me and says..."WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY LAPTOP"?!!!!!....ME????

All of a sudden when she puts the Wireless card in the PCMCIA slot it freezes...but when she pulls it out it is fine...first noticed it on boot up...it wouldnt boot up would freeze at the load screen...then started thinking and pulled the card...all loaded fine...when put the card in ...froze again...hmm...pulled the card and it unfroze...

WEIRD!!!

So where do we begin?

LT is running W2K

TIA

Comments

  • manulekamanuleka
    edited January 2008
    try updating bios for a start... seems like its freezing even before windows start!

    then try reinstalling the drivers for the Card, is the win 2K updated with latest patches

    report on your progress...
  • budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
    edited January 2008
    this notebook is so old there are no new updates out im sure...but will check..... It only freezes before windows boots if the wireless card is put in...its all about the card...its like...hmm...wonder if my CF Adapter will do the same thing....let me find it and let you know that too...

    any way...the drivers are there...all was working fine for liek ever...then there was some update that came in like 2 days ago or something...but worked after that ...because she was looking at some pic on my DT....then next day..boom...not working...weird...
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    CF Adaptor will tell us if is a PCMCIA issue or card.... We know the PCMCIA is registering a card removal and insertion, so PCMCIA is working somewhat and the socket is not corroded BADLY. Dust in socket on just some contacts??? Try an air can on contacts in socket, ok???

    Maybe the update failed to install right away??? Been known to happen.... Also, I think this is hardware related and not software from the conversation so far, but software can sometimes not take on a laptop until the laptop is warm booted, a laptop suspend will not trigger a patch installation as far as registry entries except with Vista (With Vista, it checks for partly installed patches on resume also, and installs completely after finding partly installed ones. At least this appears to happen on my mother's new Dell laptop with Vista Home Premium on it, it has even spontaneously rebooted to get registry entries installed for patches during a resume and after configuring patches in mid-resume.).
  • budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
    edited January 2008
    my CF Adapter is at my sisters 300 miles away...wont be able to get my hands on it till the weekend...any other thoughts till then...I dont know enough about W2K...is there a way to "go back"? I have thought about just formating...there isnt anything on there we care about to be honest....wait...not true...there are some pics...but I should be able to HW it to my router and transfer them to my DT....
  • budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
    edited February 2008
    It is definally the Slotts...I noticed on my Device manager there are 2 texas instrument pcmcia things now....i dont know when they got there or how...but when i uninstall them and put my network card in the LT doesnt lock up...now the Card isnt recognized either...but then when I reboot it searches and auto installs the TI drivers...and hangs everthing up...so thinking it is a driver is issure..duh...

    got to find the drivers for my network card i guess....right!
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    No, you have to find drivers for the PCMCIA controller.
  • budhisetiawanbudhisetiawan Mars Hill, NC Member
    edited February 2008
    well isnt that what 2k keeps loading?

    the TI bus controller thing?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    Yes, but it's clearly faulty. So you'll need to find a different one.
  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    Do you have a USB or Firewire drive (or an extra laptop HD) available? If so, you might try making a backup image of the laptop drive (or swapping drives) and do a clean install of Windows and drivers. If you're still experiencing the same problem after installing the drivers, but before installing the latest Windows updates you've probably got a hardware problem. If everything is working fine, install the updates and see what happens. It could be that last update either didn't install correctly, or there was some unanticipated compatibility problem between the update and your hardware.
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